


Hit the Dirt

by hurricanelights



Series: Death's Kiddo [3]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Missing Scene, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricanelights/pseuds/hurricanelights
Summary: “Stealing my spotlight at a time like this?”“We don’t have time to fool around.”Blackstar watches Kidd fall.The missing scene in the anime Kishin Asura fight, when Kidd gets stabbed.
Relationships: Black Star & Death the Kid
Series: Death's Kiddo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1507532
Kudos: 15





	Hit the Dirt

_“Stealing my spotlight at a time like this?”_

_“We don’t have time to fool around.”_

  
  


If Blackstar knows anything, it’s how it feels to be kicked.

Kicked back into the dirt, kicked when he’s down, tossed back so far and beat so bad he can barely see. It’s always been a familiar feeling. His ribs aching, his vision blurring, the taste of grime in his mouth. _Dirty, dirty Blackstar. Dirty, unwanted child._

If Blackstar knows anything, he knows how it feels to hit the ground.

It’s the shortness of breath, it's the way air bursts out of his lungs like a popped balloon. More grime. More blood.

_And get up. Get up._

Blackstar stands his ground against the Kishin Asura. He doesn’t know where Maka and Soul have gone, but Tsubaki is a familiar weight in his hands and one he never intends to let go of- not in a thousand years, not here, and _not to this_. The light is blinding, and his hands and limbs feel scalded in the heat, but he holds onto Tsubaki’s hilt and keeps charging forward.

_Don’t call me dirty! Don’t call me stupid!_

When he looks up to see Kidd running forward, guns in his hands, there’s already mud in his teeth. 

Blackstar smells the blood before he sees it; he’s always had a stronger nose than eyes. And he feels it, too, when he takes the hand Kidd offers. Already cold. Kidd had fought to get here. Blackstar bites his lip as he’s lifted back onto his feet, back into the fray.

There’s a new skip in Blackstar’s chest as he watches Kid launch his deathly assault. Something that tightens more and more as he watches- no, hears-, Kidd’s shots get more steady as the seconds tick by. His stance is getting tighter. 

Kidd is always planning something. He flips his pistols into twin pillars- thicker, a wider barrel, a deeper shot,- and Blackstar thinks, _of course he is_. Kidd explains the plan. He’s still calm, cool, unphased. They’re both covered in the same dust and dirt, but it seems to slide right off on Kidd. _Of course it does._

_Don’t look down on me._

Blackstar grinds his teeth and the words are pouring out of his mouth. He has never been careful with his words, has never had that grace, elegance, _cleanliness_. Not like _Kidd_. Not like those high, uppity-

He meets two shining pools of gold. For a split second, he thinks he imagines them widening, just a fraction. But the moment is just that- a moment. Kidd doesn’t falter, and speaks again. His voice never changes.

“We don’t have time to fool around.”

Then, Kidd is running. He’s cloaked in pure light.

_From far away, he would almost seem like a star._

_Blackstar BOILS._

Backup, he said? Kidd had asked for his _backup?_ He wasn’t anybody’s backup.

Blackstar rushes forward. He’s going to flank the Asura, and he’s going to take him down, and Kidd can-

The Asura moves before he can blink.

_Too slow._

_._

_._

_._

If Blackstar knows anything, it’s how it feels to be kicked.

But maybe, Blackstar had forgotten how it felt to be kicked. And if so, then what he remembers is this:

He knows how it feels, to hit the ground.

It’s a feeling very intimate to him, something ingrained in the corners of his soul. In places he knew to reach, whenever his sword got too heavy and his limbs got too weak. _Get up, get up_. If nothing else, he knows this. He knows the feeling of the air leaving his lungs, the way the grime presses into his dry skin, the fibers of his clothing, and the fabric of his soul.

When Kidd hits the ground, this is what Blackstar sees:

He can see the last dredges of breath pull itself from Kidd’s lungs. He can see the blood, _it must be warm now, it must be hot,_ as it spreads dark across the darker ground. He can see the grime on Kidd’s face. 

He looks nothing like a star now.

_Get up._

_Why won’t you get up!_

Tsubaki falls out of his hands.

.

.

.

Against all odds, Kidd stands.

And they win.

.

.

.

But here’s the thing, about Blackstar, and what he knows.

Blackstar isn’t perceptive. He never has been, and never will be. He doesn’t get why Tsubaki and Maka laugh at certain things he says, he doesn’t what the glances between Patty and Liz mean, he doesn’t get the way Soul grins at his partner or the way Maka giggles back. 

He thinks he gets enough about himself. Tsubaki takes his hand at the celebratory banquet after their victory, and he’s not stupid enough to mistake the skip in his chest. He knows he’s dumb enough to forget it, though, so he crosses his fingers behind his back the entire waltz.

When the dance is over and Soul waves him over to the snacks table, his tie falls out. Neither of them knows how to retie it the way Tsubaki had that morning. Neither of them had ever learned.

Blackstar stands in the middle of the lantern-lit hall, suit untied, and feels the panic settling in as he tries to fix it. Over, under, out. Wrong. Under, in, out. Wrong.

_Not the place for you. Too dirty._

Then, a hand stops him. It has a skull ring on it.

.

.

.

Blackstar isn’t perceptive, but here’s the thing.

Kidd fixes his tie for him in a carnation knot.

.

.

.

Throughout his life, Blackstar has never been forgiven for anything. Because he wanted too much. Because he was _too grimy, too disgusting_.

He touches the carnation knot on his collarbone.

And here’s the thing:

It makes Blackstar think that maybe, he knows what forgiveness feels like.


End file.
